"Reynolds, we're in the house!" chanted demonstrators last Friday as they delivered petitions with over 20,000 signatures to the tobacco company's DC offices on F Street. The petitions called on Reynolds -- the largest tobacco company in North Carolina -- to sign an agreement with the Farm Labor Organizing Committee to guarantee collective bargaining rights for workers in its supply chain so they can negotiate fair wages, decent housing, and safe work conditions in the fields. Workers have described years of grueling work in deplorable conditions, for low wages with no overtime, and having to live in overcrowded, poor-quality housing. In addition, Human Rights Watch has identified the wide-spread presence of child labor in the tobacco supply chain. "We'll be back until farmworkers get justice!" the demonstrators promised after they delivered the petitions.
On today’s Labor Calendar, there’s a free screening of the film "Dream On" at 5pm at the AFL-CIO. In the film, political comedian John Fugelsang investigates the perilous state of the American Dream after decades of an economy increasingly out of balance. For complete details on this and other upcoming local labor activities, go to dclabor.org and click on Calendar. Here’s today’s Labor Quiz: According to a recent Gallup poll, what percentage of Americans approve of labor unions? Is it 12, 23, 32, 44 or 58 percent? Go to unionist.com and click on Labor Quiz to submit your answer and you could be next week's winner! Here’s today’s labor history: On this date in 1894, Congress declared Labor Day a national holiday. Walter Reuther was born on this date in 1907. He went on to become a founder of the United Auto Workers and was president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations when it merged with the AFL in 1955. In 1934, a 3-week strike in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, part of a national movement to obtain a minimum wage for textile workers, resulted in the deaths of three workers. Ultimately more than 420,000 workers struck nationally. And on this date in 1903, the AFL-CIO created Working America, a nonpartisan, non-profit organization designed to build alliances among non-union working people. Today’s labor quote is by Walter Reuther: “We shall realize and hold on to our gains only by making progress with the community and not at the expense of the community.”
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